Preflop Raising

An under the gun player minraises, a middle position player calls, and you're in the cutoff with 75 suited. What's your play?

Raise!

Three-betting in position preflop with most reasonable hands is a standard play in shorthanded online games. Any suited connector, low pocket pair, Ax suited or high cards are worth a raise in these situations.

Often, the previous players will simply fold and you will collect your money without even having to see a flop. This is a consistent money-maker, and you should be happy to win the small pot up-front.

Other times, you'll get calls, which is also fine -- it gives you an opportunity to collect even more money with a flop continuation bet, or maybe you'll even hit your hand. Perhaps the biggest value in light preflop re-raises is that they disguise your hand well. You could have AA; you could have 98s and flop a straight. No one will ever be able to tell the difference.

My general rule of thumb is that I'll always open for a raise from any position with Axs, K8s or better, medium-strength suited connectors and up, pocket pairs and high cards. I'll re-raise or fold in position against one player, and I'll usually re-raise an early position player and a caller (or more). Suited connectors play best in position, while low pocket pairs are well-disguised in any position but often need more than one opponent to get enough implied odds against a raise.

This is quite circumstantial, though. If your read of the early position player is that he's more than likely to re-re-raise you, obviously you may simply want to call or fold. Another common situation occurs when you have one loose player raise from middle position, and you hold a hand like K9o or QTo. I feel like these hands are playable, but sometimes there's not much point in re-raising because you'll rarely make more than a one-pair hand and you don't want to get accidentally involved in a large pot.

Now, this plan works very well against bad, passive players as long as you have position. Unfortunately, there are plenty of decent players out there who will realize what you're doing and start to play back at you.

I'm reminded of this link, which originally was referenced by Dumbasses Trump All.

I find that I don't have the balls to make out of position re-re-raises against most players with marginal hands. The best outcome is that you will get a fold, but many times you'll either get a call or an all-in bet, and then you're screwed. Out of position, I try to either get in the last raise or fold. Folding is OK.

In general, I like the idea of rarely four-betting (except against donks when you have a premium hand, or in multiway pots that you want to get heads-up). It allows you to get pretty good odds relative to the pot size when holding speculative hands like low pocket pairs, and it also disguises the strength of your hand when you hold Aces or Kings. The whole point of the game is to get paid off, and the way to do that is to win big pots when your speculative hands hit and not to go bust with overpairs.

I believe the most important concept of preflop betting (and all betting, for that matter) is that it shouldn't be automatic. Everything depends on your opponents, your table image, your position, your cards, stack sizes and the previous betting action. If you don't feel like you can call a four-bet, then maybe cold calling is the best option. If you have a hand like 76s, you should probably fold against a short stack raiser because you're not getting good enough implied odds. If you know someone sees most flops, don't hesitate to make your raises very expensive with your premium hands.